Groceteria.com

Delhaize ownership came after the "lion". They use the Food Lion name in many places. They have stores in Bangkok, Thailand with that name and use a "discount" format. Some of their competitors there also are European, sometimes with US touches: Ahold (using the US-derived "...

Non-compete cluses were common in the 50s/60s, but never held up in court. The Pick-n-Pay chain in Cleveland tried unsuccessfully to block Allied Supermarkets from opening K-Mart Foods stores on their turf because of a non-compete clause in Pick-n-Pay's acquisition of Allied's Foodtown chain (unrela...

There are non-luddite reasons to avoid debit cards. They don't have the legal consumer protections of vanilla ATM cards and they are incompatible with some ATMs, esp. overseas.

Many Rexall's were chains, including some that were local co-ops. Gray, Marshall (Cunningham), and the Leader co-op operated as Rexall drug stores at various times in Cleveland. I think Gray & Marshall exited Rexall in the 60s, while Leader stayed much longer. Perhaps, Walgreen bought some chain...

Wrigley was their main brand. This was a little after they consolidated their banners in Detroit (where they also operated Packer stores), although they kept operating as K-Mart foods until the end of the decade. In Detroit, they merged with Great Scott! a year later and went to format that included...

One of the early Giant super markets in DC was in the Tenleytown neighborhood on Wisconsin Avenue, N of Albermarle. For years, it was a Hechinger DIY store and now it has a big box retailer (Staples or Office Depot, I think). It was an early example of a tight urban super market location with parkin...

I once found the original National Tea store which was on Belmont Avenue, W of the "L" probably in the 1200 or 1300 block. It was a nondescript storefront being used by a retail business. Store #1 can be semi-misleading. The Pick-n-Pay grocery chain in Cleveland (later Finast, now Tops) gr...

In DC, the 7-11s probably continue to thrive because there are relatively few 24 hour super markets or fast food places and much of the diner trade is overpriced faux diners in the suburbs. They also never had significant competition and had gained a foothold by buying High's Dairy which had had &qu...

Britt's was a unit of Newberry's. The stores were much like larger Newberry units, which were basically small, low-end department stores. I only ever saw a few Britt's & there was no logic to the locations. The same could be said of Newberry's--they that three stores in the Cleveland area. One w...

There's a Winn-Dixie in "Goldfinger", when the MI-5 guys are trailing the guy who wanted his gold (he and the subsequently car get compacted) they pass it in the background. THe grocery store in "The Deer Hunter" (where Meryl Streep works) is on Professor Avenue in Cleveland. It'...

The high pylon and no parking in front would have dated back to the early 50s and might be a long ago chain--a predecessor of W-D, Kroger, etc.?. It looks Safeway-ish, but they were never that far south. The front of the pylon has what look like spots for 6 or 7 letters. Does that provide more clues?

The popcorn & the 3/$1 subs (they may have called them "hoagies") were not included from the prototype they developed around 1983. The mere mention of the popcorn & subs reminds me of the distinctive stench they gave to K-Marts. The mid-80s format was when they first tried to draw ...

The different Eckerd chains were started by different branches of the same family. The earlier incarnation of this message board had some detail about this--I forget if they were siblings, cousins or different generations. It's doubtful that Eckerd "saved" JCP or had better management. A f...

There were early experiments with delis, bakeries (often leased departments) and coffee shop-type restaurants going back to the 50s. Typically these were in the Northeast & Midwest. The Fisher Foods chain in Cleveland had delis in almost all of the stores it opened from the mid-50s onward. Delis...

Colonial operated a small number of stores under the "Zayre Foods" banner. More commonly, they had Albers, Colonial, or Big Star stores in shopping centers with Zayre.